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Friday, 27 January 2012

Having a Plan

It's that time of year when we all seem to start off with lots of New Year resolutions and come the end of the month some of the enthusiasm starts to dwindle and achieving our aims suddenly seems a long way off.

Well how about doing things a little differently this year. Instead of worrying about lots of new resolutions how about remembering what you did really well last year and plan to continue doing more of it this year. We often get caught up in having to do things differently and yet it's important to make sure we keep doing the things that have worked and will continue to work.

Why don't you take a moment to think about 3 things you did last year that really delivered results for you in your business. Write them down, what were they, why did they work, how did you do them, what other situations could you use that type of thinking in?

When you know what has worked for you in the past and how you did it then you can start to think about what you want to achieve this year. Starting from a positive place of already knowing you can deliver results.

Then you can start to think about want you want as your challenge for this year. Have you made it a balanced challenge - is the outcome you want to achieve challenging enough to keep you interested and realistic enough to be achieved?

Along the way how will you know you are getting there, what are the smaller goals that will deliver the big one, if you know the small steps you can recognise them as you go and tick them off. Then it's a case of thinking through what might get in the way of achieving your outcome, if you think about this now and how you will overcome some of the issues then when and if they do appear you can say to yourself - 'I thought that might happen and here's my plan to deal with it' thereby making what might have seemed an insurmountable wall, just a brick to step over as you continue on your path

So plan your year and outcomes remembering to keep what you have learned with you, live in the present and plan for your future. I'll leave you with some quotes

He who fails to plan, plans to fail - Proverb

Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now - Alan Lakein

Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning - Thomas Edison

To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream, not only plan, but also believe - Anatole France